


Get On Your Knees And Say You're Mine

by sa_mu_uu



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Workplace
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-03-06 16:18:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3140813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sa_mu_uu/pseuds/sa_mu_uu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By a strange, and arguably cruel twist of fate, the virtually secluded and friendless loan-shark Zoro finds himself catering to the office prince and his seemingly insatiable mischief. This is a compilation of the events leading to what some certain co-workers dared to describe as their “happy ending”. [Modern Work AU, ZoSan/SanZo]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Oops, I started yet another (albeit much shorter) thing because I really needed something a lot less serious to work on. Enjoy? :X

Dropping his pen onto the desk in front of him with an inaudible sigh, the hollow clack of plastic against wood echoed off of the plain, undecorated walls surrounding him. One form down, a million left to go. And nobody to split the load with, of course, as per usual.

But working alone wasn't the worst, Zoro figured; people didn't work to make friends anyway, right? They worked to work, simple as that. Even so, he seemed to be the only one in the whole damn office that felt that way.

His co-workers maintained an unparalleled level of ear-splitting rambunctiousness all day long. Every single day. Consistently. Had he ever the mind to remember by the time he went home at the end of the day, he would have dropped some money on a pair of ear plugs ages ago. But by the time he had the chance to hit up a store or something, he was always so exhausted that he couldn't manage to do a damn thing but sleep until the next day rolled around.

Rinse and repeat.

It wasn't a bad life, though. His job was reasonably fulfilling, paid well, and even let him blow off some steam sometimes. If they were fortunate enough (or unfortunate enough, depending on who you asked) to end up with a client that didn't pay their dues, that was.

"Hey, Zoro, help me settle a bet."

He raised an eyebrow at this; someone in the office actually knew his name? That was news to him; nobody had actually used it before as far as he could recall. Well, nobody other than Luffy, at least. That hyperactive guy, who'd recruited him to the office in the first place, was habitually friends with everybody, Zoro included; the others, however… not quite so much. Though, for the record, mostly from his own lack of trying.

But Luffy hardly counted at the moment, since that sultry falsetto coming from the hallway couldn't have possibly belonged to him.

He looked up to his door, only to find that it was ajar and hosting that one suspiciously well-dressed blond guy that worked a few rooms down from him; the one with the weird eyebrow and silky, meticulously styled hair. But his appearance was really all Zoro had to go on. Shit, what was his name? Kanji, or something like that? That sounded right to him, at least. He'd only ever heard the guy's name used a couple of times in meetings; they hadn't ever actually been introduced properly, had they? The man was completely and utterly a stranger to him.

Which was why, when he suddenly found his chair spinning to the side with the rather sly-looking blond leaning toward him, hands dexterously placed on either armrest, it took a few moments for Zoro's mind to properly process what was happening.

"Touch me."

So much for formulating a reasonable first impression. "...Sorry, what was that?" A mixture of smoke and spice assaulted his nose as the man settled over him, his weight tipping the chair ever so slightly backward. He was close; really fucking close.

"Are you stupid?" he sneered, tipping his head to the side with an incredulous expression like Zoro's response had been the most absurd thing he'd ever heard. "Don't make me repeat myself, just do it."

"...Can I ask why?" The other man's already frustrated inflection hinted that no, he really couldn't, but hell if Zoro wasn't going to get more specific information out of him anyway.

"I already told you; a bet. Shit, you're really kind of slow, aren't you?"

Rather than Zoro being slow, it was clearly the other man that was going way too fast, here. There were a ton of pertinent details missing from their conversation thus far; but, all things considered, he really didn't care. With an irritated sigh through his nose, he swatted the man's arms out of his way and spun back to his work. "Fuck you, I'm nothing of the sort; you're just crazy. Go back to work, already."

"I finished mine for the day."

"Well, I haven't." For fuck's sake, he really,  _really_  didn't have time for this.

"Hm… Alright then, how about this," the stranger started, tugging Zoro's chair back in his direction with a surprisingly respectable amount of force. A small smile tugged at his lips, but the bubbling frustration in his one visible eye was palpable. "If you play along, I'll take half of your document queue."

If nothing else, that had certainly managed to pull Zoro's interest. "Where, exactly, did you want me to touch you to help with this… 'bet'?" He asked, peering back up at the man with a  _"go on"_  sort of look.

"Just-... I don't know, my face or something. Doesn't matter. I don't really have all day, come on."

Why he actually complied, he had no fucking idea. Maybe he'd just been taken off-guard by the authoritative tone that he wasn't used to hearing; or perhaps it was just because he didn't feel like being bothered any longer. He was falling for some sort of bait, whatever it was, but it was so beyond bizarre that it almost deserved his conceding, in a way. And it wasn't like the simple action was costing him anything, right?

Against his better judgment, his fingers traced over ivory skin, too perplexed and weirdly reluctant to touch completely. He was a fair bit softer than Zoro had been expecting, though he sure as hell wouldn't admit it. To have done so would imply that he'd bothered to give it any thought, and he absolutely wouldn't confess to anything of the sort.

With barely any force at all, he dragged his nails across the man's cheek, then his jawline, only stopping with a jolt to pull his hand back when the blond, for some reason, actually closed his eyes and  _leaned_  into his touch.

But his eyes had snapped open almost as soon as they'd fluttered shut, gaze locking onto Zoro's with a half-flustered, half-mortified expression.

Well, that was fucking weird.

There was a slight tint on his cheek; either delicate from the pressure he'd placed on it or something else, he couldn't be sure.

"Ah, I didn't think-..." There was a long pause, and his lips pulled into a tight line. "Well, I won. So that's enough, then. Later."

Won what, exactly? And who was supposed to be the loser? Releasing his grip on the chair with enough vigor to make it wobble slightly, the blond snatched a portion of the paper stack from his desk. He left as quickly as he'd appeared, leaving Zoro behind to try to make sense of the experience all on his own.

Working alone wasn't the worst, but working with a bunch of nutcases certainly might've been.

xxx

Another day, another six or so hours spent in a room so unreasonably frigid that its temperature rivaled the tundra. With eyes glossed over from boredom, Zoro glanced at the time on his laptop. Two hours left.

When the office's relaxing, albeit short silence was interrupted by a loud clatter and a thump from somewhere down the hallway towards the break room, Zoro didn't think much of it. There was an exasperated-sounding exchange, muffled only partially by the walls, but he couldn't make out any of the words. Not that he ever could. Not that it mattered.

He could preemptively feel the headache set in the moment he heard his doorknob rattle.

"Hey, Zoro, let me borrow your shirt."

"No. What happened to yours?" he asked dully, eyes unwavering from the paper on his desk. After a few days of putting up with the blond's abrupt wandering in to ask outlandish questions, he'd opted not to invest too much of his attention in whatever inane bullshit he was spouting anymore.

"What do you think? Luffy happened," he grumbled in a lower tone. The door closed behind him with a soft click. Zoro made a mental note to check if the lock on it was broken later. "I can't wear this, it's soaked. Help me out, already."

"That's not my problem, is it?"

Like some sort of petulant child, he let out a throaty groan and slumped against the door with a rattled thud. "Oh come on, you usually wear an undershirt beneath yours, don't you? So it's fine, isn't it?"

Zoro had half a mind to ask how on earth he could have possibly known that, but he was fairly certain he didn't want to know. Finally raising his gaze from his work with a frustrated sigh, his breath caught in his throat.

Water on a white shirt; of course it fucking had to have been that. The fabric was just barely transparent enough in it's dampened state to reveal the tint of his skin underneath; the image it offered was more or less a carbon copy of something straight out of one of Zoro's half-assed, middle-of-the-night fantasies, for fuck's sake. How the hell he'd managed to get so messy due only to "Luffy" was completely beyond him. There had to have been three or four separate spills on his torso alone; his pants, thankfully black and thusly still presentable, seemed to have fallen victim on top of that as well.

The situation seemed almost planned out, and Zoro wouldn't have put it past him. However, the telling glower on his face hinted that he was probably mistaken about that. Maybe. But the man was right, he very well couldn't walk around like that all day, that much was obvious.

"...Fine," Zoro grumbled, standing from his chair. Dragging the knot of his tie down to pull it from under his collar, he tried with all his might to ignore the subtly prying eyes as he removed his shirt. The blond was watching him; he sure as hell tried to make it seem like he wasn't, but the effort was wasted on someone as perceptive as Zoro. "You know you're going to have to ditch yours if you want to use mine, right?"

"A-ah, yeah, I suppose that's true," he coughed, averting his eyes to the floor with a crooked frown. He made short work of the slippery buttons, and shrugged the fabric off of his shoulders with an inward grimace. "Shit, your room is cold. Why is it so cold?"

His arrant bitching, as it were, fell on deaf ears. Gods, the blond's build was impeccable. Even Zoro, in all his usual apathy, couldn't help but stare; every damn muscle was sculpted to perfection. The other man didn't really seem to him like the type to work out much, but apparently he'd been dead wrong in that assumption; those abs were self-evident.

And that slender curve of his waist into his hip bones… fucking hell.

The man's visible eyebrow raised and he opened his mouth to speak, but Zoro shoved the clothing into his hands before he had the chance to taunt him for staring or say anything else undoubtedly offensive.

The blond simply snorted at the gesture, putting it on without skipping a beat. The sleeve length may have been right, but the rest of the measurements proved to be a bit much for him, if only just a bit. He left the top few buttons undone to hide the fact that the neck was too loose, but it didn't really help his case all that much. Although Zoro would never admit it, the sight was sort of cute.

The man's eyes slipped shut for a second, shoulders tensing ever so slightly. Was he inhaling Zoro's scent? As if on cue, his expression twisted into something that almost could have been described as a pout, and his nose twitched imperceptibly. Yeah, there was no way he was imagining that.

"...This fabric is awful," he grumbled, rubbing it between his fingers with a look of disdain. "You wear this all day long? How do you stand it?"

"If you don't like it, give it back." How could any one person complain so damn much? You'd think it was in his job description, for how consistently ungrateful he was proving to be.

"...Hm. Maybe you're not as much of an asshole as everyone thinks, marimo," Zoro wasn't sure whether to be more irritated by the statement itself or his apparent new nickname. "I'll bring this back to you tomorrow. Thanks!"

Zoro's stomach churned a bit at that last part. Well… maybe, just  _maybe_ , that stupid blond wasn't as inconsiderate as he'd initially thought.

But, damn it, now he was even colder than before.


	2. Chapter 2

The muffled sound of some top-40's song on the radio drifted in from the crack underneath Zoro's door. More often than not, music meant it was lunch time. The collective out-of-tune singing that accompanied it, on the other hand, signified that everyone had decided to occupy the break room all at once. His eyes shifted to the bottom corner of his laptop screen; 12:43. Every day, like clockwork; couldn't they at least pick a better number to adhere to so closely? The time seemed so arbitrary.

Then again, what about their office  _wasn't_  completely arbitrary?

Perhaps skipping lunch that day would be a good idea. Zoro let out a heavy sigh, tapping his pencil against the desk in thought as he weighed his options. Food, or peace.

_Tick tick tick._

Yeah, he could go without food.

_...Tick._

Alright, fine, maybe he was a little hungry.

Scratch that; he was starving. Understandably so, considering he hadn't bothered to eat a damn thing since morning yesterday. Not that it was anyone's fault but his own, but that was likely the reason why he felt like he was running on fumes even though it was so early in the day. Yeah, food was definitely necessary. Having made up his mind for better or worse, he shoved himself away from his desk and stood to make his way for the door.

He paused momentarily as his attention shifted to the white shirt on the chair by the exit. It sat there completely untouched, meticulously folded and tied with a thin, silky blue string; like it belonged on a shelf in a ladies' underwear boutique or something. Two days, and he still hadn't bothered to bring it home; if he left it there much longer, it might start to collect dust.

The more he thought about the gesture, the stranger it seemed. The blond bastard sure did put in a lot of effort into the presentation of the shirt he'd complained was so "awful". And try as he might, Zoro couldn't forget the smug look of satisfaction on the man's face when he came to return it.  _"I washed it for you last night. No doubt it was the first time anyone's bothered to use fabric softener on your pathetic rags... Well, you'll thank me later,"_  he'd said, as if he'd expected Zoro to give him a medal for his efforts. And then the guy had the gall to forego handing the damn thing to him, opting instead to drop it on the nearest possible surface and saunter off to god-knows-where to do who-the-hell-knows-what.

Who died and made him the king of fashion, anyway? Fuck him.

Ignoring the newly present sensation of cheap cotton chafing his forearms, he made a mental note to remember the stupid shirt on his way home later, and opened the door.

"Heeey, Zoro," he muttered to himself under his breath, mocking the blond's typical tone as he shuffled down the hallway. "If you let me shove my foot up your ass, I'll make you some coffee..." Not that the blond had ever actually suggested anything quite  _that_ ridiculous, but he'd be lying if he said he hadn't absentmindedly had similar daydreams at least once.

But the handful of daydreams he'd allowed himself over the past few days were nothing at all like what he had to deal with in reality. Whereas the blond in his mind suggested sexy, borderline outrageous things in the most blunt way possible, the one that existed in the office down the hall demanded the most mundane things in a way that was almost downright sultry. When the one in his mind suggested a blowjob under the desk with the inflection one would use to ask to borrow a goddamn pencil, the one in real life asked to check his documents in the sort of tone he would use if they were starring in an old-timey porno. Frankly, he wasn't sure which one bothered him more.

The music from beyond the break room door had lowered to what he figured could be considered a reasonable volume, but the ambient noise had been replaced by equally loud chatter and microwave beeping that went on for ages, like the person whose food was in it was completely oblivious to the noise. The sound of metal chair legs grating against the floor tiles made him wince as he reached for the doorknob.

"I still can't for the life of me figure out how you did that!" Zoro paused, fingers slowly curling around the handle. The voice was one he recognized, but he couldn't place a name or face to it.

"Oi, I don't kiss and tell... What fun would that be?"

Zoro's breath caught in his throat, and he bit his lip to stifle a frustrated sigh as his eyes reflexively rolled despite nobody being there to see the gesture. He knew that voice. The less realistic part of him had been hoping that the blond had decided to skip out on the lunchtime festivities that day. Of course he didn't. For a split second, he wasn't so sure his lunch would really be worth the trouble. But he shook his head, inwardly grimacing as he steeled himself. What the hell was he, some sort of pushover? No way would he let the mere presence of  _anyone_  control him like that. He threw the door open with enough force to make it rattle, bringing the conversation inside to a grinding halt as everyone turned to him in shock.

"...O-Oh, speak of the devil! Hey, man!" The voice he couldn't place before, evidently, belonged to the guy with the long nose. But the man's name eluded him still... it was definitely something strange. Carhop? Laptop? No, that couldn't be right.

"Woah, Zoro? You're out of your room?" Luffy perked up, grinning excitedly as he swallowed a whole sandwich without so much as a single chew. Well, at least he could identify one person, right?

Zoro let the door click shut behind him. "Yeah, what of it?"

"I didn't realize you actually needed food to survive," the red-headed woman started, raising an eyebrow as he made his way to the fridge to dig out his lunch. "Pretty sure I've never seen you eat anything before. Go figure."

He simply snorted in response, taking a seat between her and Luffy. Her casual taunt was a moot point now that he was eating right in front of them, after all, wasn't it? For added effect, he gave her a pointed look as he took the first bite of his day-old, dried out rice. Her lips curled into an amused smile, and she rolled her eyes before turning back to her food.

"So, Zoro," the long-nose chimed in again, haphazardly waving a fork-full of noodles in the air in his direction. "Since you're here, fill us in on your side of the whole bet thing!"

Bet... Bet? The word rang a bell, but Zoro couldn't place the reason why. He spoke up again, mouth half-full of rice, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Really? Well, I mean, we made a bet with that smug jerk over there that he couldn't hold intimate contact with you for at least ten seconds. I never thought he could bring himself to do it, much less manage to convince you..." The guy trailed off, giving him an incredulous look from behind his thick, goggle-like glasses. "Wow, did you really not even know about it?"

Ah, that bet. Right. His brow furrowed as he let the information process; who the hell would arrange a bet with such weirdly specific terms? Then again, considering how often the lot of them seemed to be up to that sort of bullshit, it made sense that they'd have to try hard to keep it original.

"I have to admit, I'm impressed," the red-head mused, chin resting in her hand as her narrowing gaze flickered to the blond standing by the sink across the room. "Then again, we never got any real proof... He didn't lie about winning, did he?"

"What?!" Curly-brows looked downright appalled, reeling overdramatically as he slumped against the counter in shock. "I could never lie to you!"

"I wasn't asking you, I was asking  _him_!"

Zoro was silent for a moment, giving the question some consideration. He really didn't feel like risking the torment that would no doubt befall him if he lied about what happened at the blond's expense; there was no way in hell he'd get away with that unscathed. Besides, the group had clearly already long since made up their own weird assumptions about him, so it couldn't hurt his reputation all that much more to just admit that it happened. Ten seconds wasn't much, after all. "...No, that guy wasn't lying."

"Damn. Guess that's that, then," the woman to his left sighed, puffing her cheeks a bit in defeat as she stood to drop her styrofoam plate in the trash. "My poor wallet..."

"Oh, of course I'll be letting you off the hook, my dear!" The blond cut in again, swooning as he dropped to his knee at her side. Zoro's eyebrow raised mid-chew when the man brought her hands into his. "The men still have to pay up, but you don't owe me anything! And the food today? Was it good?!"

"Yeah, yeah. It was perfect as always, thank you," she rolled her eyes with a tired grin, smoothly retracting her hands from his and pushing in the chair she'd been using before heading for the door. "I'm gonna get back to work. Don't take too long in here, guys; we fell behind a bit last week, and the boss is having none of that!"

"Ah, y'know, she's probably right..." The long-nose grumbled, scratching the back of his head before following in suit. "Come on, Luffy; I need some help bringing up some crates from the basement."

"Ohh, really? Sounds fun! Let's go!" Luffy's nearly-permanent smile brightened, and he dumped the remains of his plate down his esophagus in one inhuman gulp.

Zoro watched as half of the room disappeared through the door, taking another bite and swallowing thickly as the grains of rice simultaneously scratched and stuck to his throat with their refrigerator-hardened mushiness. The moment the door shut and he and the blond were completely alone, he promptly turned to Zoro with an exasperated sneer.

"Oi, moss head."

The man's expression actually looked pretty pissed off; that was new. Still, Zoro shot him back a glare of equal strength. "What?"

" _'That guy'_? You don't even know my fucking name, do you?"

Damn, he was perceptive. "No, I don't."

The blond's face deadpanned and he tilted his head to the side, glaring holes straight into him as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "It's Sanji."

"Sanji," Zoro repeated back, syllables rolling off his tongue with ease. The name was palatable, unlike the person it belonged to. It was smooth; almost sort of refined. Completely and utterly unlike the man himself.

"How could you not know that?" Sanji's nose scrunched in distaste as his gaze noticeably shifted back and forth between Zoro and his admittedly sad excuse for a lunch. He looked as if he wanted to make a rude remark about it, but was apparently too ticked off about his newest discovery to want to change the subject.

Zoro simply shrugged; he didn't really have a good answer for that. Scraping whatever he could manage to unstick from the bottom of the plastic container, he watched Sanji's visible eye follow the utensil to his mouth with an amusing look of horror. The man shivered almost imperceptibly as Zoro swallowed, either in revulsion or arousal, he wasn't sure which. "...Well, if it's any consolation, it's not just yours that I'm blanking on."

"You're joking, right? I knew you were antisocial, but this is fucking ridiculous!"

"It's not like I ever need to use names, anyway."

"Un-fucking-believable," Sanji groaned, rubbing his temples in frustration. "I can't believe you managed to get by this long without me."

Zoro said nothing, turning his attention back to the remnants of his food. If the guy was going to be a prick about it, then their conversation was over. He sure as hell didn't have to put up with that.

"...Alright, I'm only going to help you out this once, so listen up," Sanji began again, leaning back with his arms folded authoritatively over his chest. "That beautiful vision of perfection that just left is Nami; her and Usopp, the guy with the nose, are the accounting department. You already know Luffy and me, we're the same as you; clerks. The stunning woman always behind the front desk in the afternoon is Robin, and that guy who never shows up until the end of the day is Franky. He spends most of his time on the street, sharking for our money; you know how it is. The boss is Shanks... and I highly suggest you remember that name especially, if you plan on sticking around here. He's a nice guy, but he deserves respect."

Now that he mentioned it, those names did sound awfully familiar. Zoro made a mental note to remember them more carefully, this time. "What about that kid with the brown hair?"

"You mean Tony the intern? He's a part-timer. Only ever comes in on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He's got university classes to attend the other three days."

"And the tall guy that always wears sunglasses indoors?"

"That's Brook, the building manager. He and I go out drinking all the time, but I still haven't been able to figure out what the hell he does all day. It's a fucking mystery if I've ever seen one."

"Weird," Zoro hummed in response. "Well, thanks, I guess." Having long since devoured the last of his food, it didn't make much sense for him to sit around much longer, so he stood and gathered what few things of his littered the table.

Feet swinging idly in the air, Sanji let out a quiet exhale through his nose, and took a sip from his unlabeled to-go cup. "...You know, I used to spend weekdays working as a chef before I was conned into working in this fucking shitstain of a building."

Zoro glanced over at him in curiosity, momentarily blindsided by the change in topic. But Sanji's expression was warm; not bitter or pouting, like he was expecting. There was a smile on his face, not a sexy one, like he'd had when trying on Zoro's shirt, but one that was more complacent. Almost reserved, in a way.

Zoro feigned indifference, setting his belongings back on the table in a slightly neater pile than they'd been in before and turned to face him again with an unimpressed look. "I don't recall ever asking for your life story."

"Shut up and be grateful that I'm taking pity on your uncharismatic ass. Sit down."

Raising an eyebrow, he didn't put up a fight and complied, sitting down backwards in the chair he'd occupied before with his arms resting on the back. Was Sanji actually trying to be nice? It was a surprisingly relaxing change of pace from the banter he'd been getting so used to lately. "...You like food, then?" He asked, in a lackluster attempt to play along.

"That's certainly one way of putting it," Sanji muttered in response, adding a quiet "if you're a simpleton" to the end.

"So, why are you here? Doesn't it suck to not spend the day doing what you like?"

Sanji simply shook his head, leaning to the side to reach something from a plate on the counter that Zoro hadn't noticed before. It was almost empty, holding still a handful a dark brown squares; chocolate, of some sort? "Nah, I still cook all the time... I have a life outside of here, obviously. Don't you do anything that's not work related?"

When he put it that way, that certainly made sense. "Well, yeah," Zoro nodded, flashing him a smile. That was one thing he definitely didn't mind talking about. "Kendo. I'm a teacher on the weekends." And a damn good one, at that. While he didn't think himself to be a particularly bad office clerk, his real talents were bound to his foster dad's dojo.

Sanji perked up a bit, not trying to hide the fact that he was pleased by the new information. "Oh, really? That suits you, actually... I'm into martial arts, as well. You should teach me a lesson or two, sometime."

Zoro simply snorted, looking the guy over incredulously. If Sanji handled his swords the way he handled his conversations, he wouldn't let the man within a mile of his dojo in a million years.

The blond seemed to accept his silence, shrugging and breaking eye contact during the lull in dialogue to turn his attention back to the plate. He leaned back against the counter again, popping a chocolate past his lips with a content sigh. "...Hey, you should try one of these. Not to brag, but they came out pretty good."

And how, exactly, was that not bragging? "Yeah, no thanks... I'm not really into sweet stuff."

Sanji rolled his eyes exaggeratedly, his angular shoulders sagging along with the gesture as he bit into another one. "It's dark chocolate, you shitty cretin. It's supposed to be more bitter than sweet."

Was Zoro supposed to have known that or something? Fucking know-it-all. "In that case… sure, whatever. Why not."

"Hmm, but I only have one left," Sanji mused lowly, before a devilish smile crept across his lips and he clamped down the last piece between his teeth.

Zoro choked back a unidentifiable noise as the blond stared him down with that shitty smug grin he always wore when he was plotting something. That look spelled trouble every time without fail. "You... tryin' to mess with me or something?"

"Oh, I would never. Let's make a game of it," he managed to say without dropping the chocolate piece. "Take it. If you touch me, you lose... Or, are you too scared?"

Scared? Absolutely fucking not. "What happens when I win?"

Sanji's only visible eyebrow raised, and he contemplated the question for a short moment. " _If_  you win," he started, stressing the "if" that Zoro had so astutely neglected to use. "Then, I'll make you lunch tomorrow. Something to replace that off-white pile of garbage you inhaled today. How's that?"

"You're on."

Sanji smiled brightly around the chunk of chocolate, taking a few strides over to Zoro's seat and dropping to his eye level.

Zoro's gaze shifted cautiously between Sanji's lips and his visible eye as the man shifted closer; his confidence wavered slightly as he realized he was unsure how he was supposed to approach something like this. He'd seen kids do this sort of thing in high school before, but he'd never tried it himself. Before he had the chance to mull it over, his field of vision was overwhelmed by dull gold and blue; his lungs filled with Sanji's smoldering exhale as he took a heavy breath in. Even if they'd been about to actually kiss or something, people usually closed their eyes at some point, right? But the blond didn't; the eye contact at such close quarters was all sorts of unsettlingly intimate.

Zoro's fingers twitched in objection, loudly berating him for not clutching the man's toned forearms, or his slender hips, or even the fabric of his shirt; anything to get his muscles working and shake the tension from his veins. But "no touching" was the only damn rule he needed to follow, and he wasn't one to take a loss so easily. Begrudgingly, he forced his eager hands to remain at his sides.

A hair-raising shock shot down his spine and into his toes as their noses brushed ever so slightly, and Zoro leaned back by reflex. Did that count as touching? Nothing in Sanji's demeanor had changed, so he assumed the game must have still been on. Good.

Eyes flickering up to the other man's again, Zoro's heart leapt in his chest as he registered the heated, half-lidded look on his face. He immediately turned his attention back to the task at hand, closing the space between them again with renewed daring. Dexterously adjusting his trajectory to avoid another collision, the chocolate prodded his lips with a soft nudge just before his nose could make contact with the other man's cheek. Zoro could have sworn he felt the tip of Sanji's tongue brush over his as he gratuitously prodded the chocolate over into his mouth; if the guy was actually trying to make the challenge, for lack of a better word,  _challenging_ , he sure wasn't doing a very good job.

It tasted good;  _damn good_ , but not allowing himself to touch the man's lips left an empty feeling in his chest that he couldn't fucking believe existed in the first place. His gut wrenched violently in protest as he leaned back in his seat and chewed.

"What do you think? Pretty smooth, huh?" Sanji asked, very obviously proud of himself as he stood up and stepped back. His toothy smile exuded an impression of victory, but that tint of red hidden behind his overgrown bangs didn't go unnoticed.

Zoro took a moment to savor the taste, then swallowed thickly, taking a bit longer to recover than he would have liked to admit. "Ha... yeah, I guess. If you're into that sort of thing." He couldn't even manage to convince himself that he was referring to the chocolate. "You let me win, didn't you?"

"Why do you think that?"

"You didn't even bother to set a condition for if I lost."

Sanji's visible eye widened for a split second, having apparently not realized this himself, and his hand drifted up to idly twirl a lock of hair around his finger; a nervous tick Zoro was starting to pick up on. "...Alright, you got me. But it was just this once. And only because I pity your stomach. You like rice dishes, right? How does onigiri sound?"

Zoro wasn't too keen on taking a win he might not have earned on his own, but he let it slide. To object any further would make it seem like he was actually taking the blond's bullshit seriously. Which, of course, he wasn't. At all. So he nodded and gave him a half smile, gathering his things from the table again as he stood. "Sounds fine by me, cook. Now, come on, it's about time we got back to work."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, alright. I fell in love with this AU damn it. :T Thanks again, guys… See you soon!


	3. Chapter 3

Zoro didn't bother stifling the exaggerated yawn that erupted from his throat as he stretched his aching muscles, rolling his shoulders to make his joints crack with a series of loud snaps and pops. Sitting behind a desk all day, to him, was far more tedious than any sort of strenuous workout. His body still hadn't adjusted to spending so much time in the same stiff, cramped position for hours at a time. But at the very least, his clothes no longer felt like an itchy second skin to add to the discomfort.

Fabric softener, he had come to realize in the past couple of weeks, was pretty damn awesome; even if it did make all of his clothes smell like flowers and shit. It was a lot easier to focus on his daily tasks without being distracted by the sensation of being gradually abraded to the bone with every shift and stretch of the arm. He could thank the blond for that discovery, he figured. Not that he planned to.

His stomach, for once, was mostly placated as well. Chopper had stopped by Zoro's room earlier in the morning for the first time ever, leaving him a scalding hot cup of coffee and a particularly shiny-looking apple to "start his day off well". He wasn't usually one to bother with breakfast or whatever, but the gesture was so downright adorable he didn't have the heart to resist. Other than that short interaction, though, the first couple of hours had gone by without so much as a moment's interruption.

He would have enjoyed the silence if it weren't for the inevitable episode with Sanji hanging over his head. Every day, it was something; so why would that day be any different? Interactions with him were a lot like pulling off a bandage; it was better to just get it over with as soon as possible. Which was why, when the aforementioned blond finally swung the door open, striding across the room like he owned the place, Zoro felt almost relieved for a second.

"Oi, kendo master," he droned, twirling a silver key around his finger as he took a seat on the edge of the desk. That spot was becoming his favorite place to sit, despite Zoro having two completely functional chairs not even three feet away from there. "Come help me with some heavy lifting."

Nose scrunching at the newest in a long list of questionable nicknames, Zoro shot him an unimpressed look and leaned back in his chair. "Oh, so you're too weak to handle a few boxes or something by yourself? Why does that not surprise me?"

"I can fucking handle them just fine, asshole, there's just a lot of them. And I have better things to do than spend all day in a shitty basement."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Like making sure lazy mossballs like you don't sit around being useless," he retorted, twisting around to lift his legs up onto the length of the uncluttered desk as he pulled a lighter and mostly-flattened box of cigarettes from his pocket. "Don't think I didn't notice you taking that nap yesterday."

Not the least bit surprised to hear that the blond had been up to something as ridiculous as watching him sleep, Zoro opted to tackle the other discourtesy at hand. "Did I say you could light up in here?"

Sanji paused as the lighter's flame met the end of the cigarette, his visible eye going wide in confusion as his gaze shifted between Zoro and the stick in his mouth. Judging by the way he was silent for a moment, which never happened unless he needed a second to think, Zoro wondered if he'd even realized he'd gone for one in the first place. "Well, you never said I couldn't..."

"If you set off the sprinklers and ruin my laptop, I'm charging you for it."

The man glanced down at the chunk of worn-down, black plastic by his side, pausing for a moment before letting out an almost inaudible snort. "If that ever happened, I'd buy you one twice as nice. But it won't; quit worrying so much."

Well, if anyone knew anything about getting away with smoking indoors, it would probably be him. "Fine, whatever. You're here for another favor, right? What's the bribe this time?"

Sanji took a long drag, exhaling over his shoulder away from Zoro's direction. "...Carry half of today's orders upstairs, and I might be kind enough to wake you up the next time you're drooling all over your desk."

There was no telling what he meant by that, but Zoro had a sneaking suspicion that his methods wouldn't be as simple as a tap on the shoulder. His mind reeled with the ridiculous possibilities, and he found it becoming more and more difficult to ignore the sensation of heat gathering in his ears and across his face. "And just what the hell makes you think I'd want that?"

"Oh? You won't do it, then?" He leaned back toward Zoro's side of the desk with a nonchalant head-tilt, his voice raising an octave to a taunting intonation as he sucked in and released another wave of smoke through parted lips. "So, you won't mind if I go right now to tell the boss about what I saw before?"

"Blackmail, huh? And here I thought even  _you_  wouldn't go that low, curly-brows," he growled, glaring daggers back at the man's infuriating smile before a realization struck him and a smirk overtook his face as well. "...But I doubt you'd actually tell him. Because that would mean having to admit that you were watching me instead of working, too."

Sanji's smug grin faltered and he took another drag, lifting a hand to pluck the stick from his lips. He tapped the ashes into the perpetually empty garbage can behind him, and carefully stubbed it out on his metal tie clip before discarding the butt as well. "...Are you feeling lucky enough to test that theory, or do you want to just get this shitty chore done in half an hour tops and be done with it?"

His initial instinct was to opt for the former, for no real reason other than to match the other's level of defiance, like it was some sort of inadvertent challenge. But the more he thought about it, the more a chance to stretch out and work his body a bit seemed awfully tempting. Even if the task wouldn't by any means be an adequate workout, it would at least be better than sitting around staring at the ceiling for another hour or so.

"Fine. Let's go before I change my mind," he grumbled as he stood, choking back a groan at the suddenly apparent knot in his back from sitting in the same position for so long. Rolling his hips and arching his back to realign his spine, he didn't miss the lingering once-over the other man gave him before wordlessly following suit, hopping off of the desk and making his way to the door with a pleased but quiet hum.

They made their way down the hallway without so much as an ounce of smalltalk; either because they couldn't be bothered or because it was comfortable enough without it, Zoro wasn't quite sure which. He was, however, grateful as hell that the blond could apparently appreciate silence every now and then. But the second they rounded the corner into the lobby, whatever semblance of gratefulness he had for the other man was promptly thrown out the window.

"Oh, Robin! How stunning!" Sanji exclaimed in that grating voice that Zoro was beginning to realize was exclusively reserved for speaking to women, cupping his own cheeks in his palms as he bolted over to the front counter near the entrance. "Be still, my heart; has anyone ever told you how lovely you look with the sunshine framing your face? You look just like a work of art!"

"If I recall correctly, you did just last week," she smiled, reaching down to somewhere out of Zoro's line of sight. She procured a small glass bowl, and placed it on the counter between them. "Since you're here, would you by any chance mind taking some candy? The boss bought some for the front desk on a whim, but we don't ever have children visiting here, so I've only been able to pawn it off on Tony… I'm afraid he'll get a stomach ache if he has too much more, but I'd hate for them to go stale and have to be thrown away."

The chilling warmth in her tone made Zoro's hair stand on end. From the one time he'd interacted with her, he'd come to realize why she'd been chosen for the job that she held; part of her work involved scaring unwanted visitors away, something he'd experienced firsthand when he'd shown up on his first day without an official appointment. To put it lightly, she was damn good at what she did.

"Well, I guess it'd be a shame to let them go to waste…" Casually leaning against the counter on his elbows, Sanji gave the bowl a conflicted look for a moment, then flashed her a bright grin, picking through the individually wrapped pieces to pull out a small red lollipop. Zoro inwardly grimaced; of course he'd pick something like that. Fucking typical. "If it's Ms. Robin asking, there's no way I could refuse! Thank you for the offering, my angel!"

"If it's any consolation, I believe he mentioned they're organic."

"Is that so? Even better!" Sanji turned to back to Zoro and nodded toward the counter, his tone dropping to its typical nonchalant drawl as soon as they made eye contact. "Oi, marimo, be a gentleman and take one too."

Looking between the other two and scratching the back of his head awkwardly, he crossed the lobby to approach Robin's desk. He was unsure where exactly he stood with the woman in terms of acquaintanceship, but the look on her face was about as nonthreatening as he'd seen it so far; not that that said much, but he figured at the very least it meant his presence wasn't unwelcome.

"It's nice to see you out amongst the living, Mr. Roronoa," she started, that calm but questionably eerie smile still just as evident as always. "I wasn't aware that you two were very well acquainted."

"Ah, well, I wouldn't really say that," he muttered in response, pulling out the first candy his fingers fell on and promptly stuffing it into his pocket, making a mental note to take it out before throwing those pants in the wash later.

"No? How interesting."

Interesting? He couldn't see how it possibly could be. "Uh, I don't know, is it?"

She didn't offer him up much of a response, not that he was particularly looking for one. "So, are you two on your way somewhere? I doubt that your final destination would be my desk... There's nothing for you to do here, after all."

"Ah, yes," Sanji cut back in, nudging Zoro out of the way with one foot to get closer to being in front of her again. "Shanks has us fetching stock today. We're on our way downstairs at the moment. Gonna get some arm work in for the day, if you know what I mean." Zoro snorted at the display as Sanji flexed to show off his average-at-best arm muscles, half of which were completely hidden by the sleeves that were rolled up to his elbows anyway.

Robin simply chuckled in response, and lifted the bowl to put it back behind the counter. "Sounds very enjoyable. Be careful though, would you? I would hate to see you break a hand… or perhaps worse."

After some pressing and actual physical tugging, Zoro eventually managed to pry the other man away from the counter and back to their original course toward the stairs, but not without some complaints and mild insults. The walk to the basement fell back into silence by the time they reached the staircase, filled only with the shuffling of their feet against concrete and the rattle of the candy rolling around between Sanji's teeth that echoed off the unfinished walls around them.

"...Where are we taking these boxes to, anyway? Back to the lobby?" Zoro finally asked, as it occurred to him that the other man had neglected to mention any sort of plan for what they'd set out to do, which sure as hell wasn't going to work out unless he had a destination in mind.

"Yeah," he replied simply, not bothering to look Zoro in the eye as they walked side by side. Instead, his eyes were glued to the passing steps underneath them, apparently finding the stairs far more fascinating than him despite the plain, cracked surface holding nothing of interest. "The boss mentioned something about some pick-ups today. Not sure who's swinging by, but he said we need fifty cases."

Zoro hummed on an exhale, slowing to a standstill on the bottom step of the last flight of stairs as Sanji shoved the key into the lock on the door before them. "Fifty? Impressive."

He rattled the doorknob a few times, his face twisting into a scowl as he fiddled with the lock. "Well, it's divided between three separate orders, I think. Who the hell would need four hundred bottles of sake at once?"

"Right, I guess that makes sense…" Zoro certainly wouldn't mind having that many himself, but that was beside the point, he guessed.

In reality, they were a loan company. The boss had a great deal of money, and had decided to make more of it in the most universally useful way possible; by loaning what he had to those who needed more immediately than he did. For a bit of interest, naturally.

The man's methods of gaining capitol, Zoro thought, were perfectly fair. After all, he was always mindful to take it easy on those who didn't truly deserve to be roughed up for being late on a payment. Unfortunately for them, the law definitely wouldn't always see things their way, which was why they chose to formulate a cover business; more specifically, distributing sake from a brewery in the boss's hometown. As one might expect, investigators rarely ever went poking around in the affairs of licensed salesmen. That wasn't to say that the business was a total lie, of course; they actually did sell to a few particular groups of people, but they didn't go out of their way to try to drum up more sales or anything like that.

To Zoro's disdain, that's where the majority of his job lied. He, Luffy, and the curly-brows were the ones that kept the cover business up and faked the books, trying to keep their false records as close to the ones they got in the real financial reports from Nami and Usopp as possible. That way, the company didn't have money spawning from seemingly nowhere and end up raising any eyebrows unnecessarily. It was an important job, if nothing else.

"Ah, there we go," Sanji perked up, his irritated expression turning to a victorious grin as he pulled the key out of the lock and shoved the door open. His hand slipped around the corner of the doorframe to flick on the lightswitch, and there was a low hum from somewhere in the distance for a few moments before the room lit up.

Stacks upon stacks of boxes printed with a logo reading "West Blue" on the sides stretched back further than the lights reached, disappearing back into the darkness. Zoro suspected that most of them were empty; embellishment, to keep up appearances or something, because he'd never once had to go past the tenth row of shelves to get what was needed. The ceilings were a bit low and every breath he took in brought some dust with it, but something about the musty scent of cardboard and aged paper was oddly relaxing. He kept a couple of steps behind as they made their way past the carts, stacks of books, and loose papers crowding the front of the room; their destination was a bit further back, beyond the cabinets and file folders that were decidedly more relevant to Nami and Usopp's use than to their own.

Something in front of him reflected the light above and caught his eye; the silver key, still in the blond's hand, twirled once around his finger before being deftly tucked into his back pocket for safe keeping. Watching the key disappear behind black fabric, he couldn't manage to tear his eyes away from it even as that pale forearm, practically luminous under the soft lowlight, fell back to his side. His pants were just tight enough for the outline of the key to be visible against his ass, and keeping an eye on its shape made Zoro suddenly all too aware of the way the man's thin hips moved with every step. He'd never noticed the way Sanji walked with such a subtle spring in his stride before; like his legs naturally wanted to do more than what was needed to take him from point A to point B. The innate need to evaluate strength that was so deeply rooted inside of Zoro wanted to test them; he knew the signs of power lying dormant when he saw it. He'd written off the blond's comment about "being into martial arts" before as being more conversation fodder than anything else, but he was beginning to second guess that assumption.

"You always this damn slow, mosshead?" Sanji called back to him, peering over his shoulder with an impatient look. Zoro's gaze shot up to meet his, but not quickly enough; Sanji's visible eye widened and shifted down, following the invisible trail down his body that Zoro had left behind. He came to a sudden halt, as the realization that he was being checked out hit him, and he quickly spun on his heels to face Zoro directly. "O-oi, what do you think you're-"

"Don't stop so sudden- Shit!" Zoro stuck his hands out to brace Sanji's shoulders as he stumbled into him. Their brisk pace being interrupted was enough to offset his balance, throwing them both into a shelf that stuck out into their pathway. The blond let out a grunt as his back slammed into the metal frame, which grated sharply against the concrete floor in protest.

"Ow, what the hell did you do that for?!" He snapped, reflexively shoving Zoro back into one of the shelving units behind him. The blunt force of his shoulders sent the mostly empty frame toppling over on impact, stacks of paper that had been placed on it spilling to the floor in a fluttering whirlwind of white as it landed tilted against another shelf behind it with a metallic clang.

"Me?! That was all  _you_!" Zoro growled back, steadying himself to avoid falling back with the shelf he'd collided with. "Don't just stop when someone's right behind you, moron!"

Sanji wasted no time planting a solid kick to his solar plexus; Zoro had his wits about him just enough to tense his abdominals in time to avoid having the wind knocked out of him, but not enough to block properly. The sharp pain that seeped into his gut confirmed his previous suspicions; those legs had some serious capability. The realization was enough to make his head swim in excitement. "I wouldn't have stopped if you hadn't been so obviously staring at my ass, perverted moss-idiot!"

"Perverted?! Like you're one to talk, curly-browed voyeur!" Fortifying himself in a more solid stance, he threw a calculated punch for the man's neck, which was left completely open and devoid of proper shielding. Was he doing that on purpose? Instead of throwing up an arm block like Zoro had expected, he ducked, dropping all the way to Zoro's waist-level and side-stepping toward the wall to avoid a follow-up attack. They exchanged vigorous but precise blows and blocks without either gaining an edge on the other, until one particular dodge had Sanji leaning so far back his head nearly touched the floor. Zoro was certain the other man would need a moment to recover from a dodge like that; never before in his life had he so sorely misjudged an opponent. His eyes nearly popped out of his skull when he felt the rubber sole of a shoe slam into his jaw with a violent crack reverberating in his eardrums.

"Damn it…" Zoro recoiled from the strike, rubbing his cheek as he popped his jaw back into place. Sanji was upright again, very obviously basking in the glory of landing such a good hit. But Zoro was too fascinated, too absorbed in his newest discovery to get riled up over the shit-eating grin on his face. Grabbing as much of the man's shirt in his fists as he could manage, which wasn't much given how perfectly fitted it was, Zoro lifted Sanji from his feet and shoved him against the more weighted shelf that still stood, ignoring the sound of protest as the blond squirmed to find a foothold. "What the hell kind of bullshit flexibility is that?" he growled under his breath, more badgering than angry, leaning in so close that the end of the lollipop stick almost touched his nose.

"Ten years of training in savate," he smiled, rolling the candy in his mouth around with his tongue. "I've never met a guy who could take my blows so easily, though. Most men would be out cold by now..." One foot had managed to secure a resting place on one of the metal slabs behind him, but his other leg was slowly making its way around Zoro's waist instead, potentially setting him up for some significant leverage. Did he think he was being fucking sneaky? "Feeling a little light-headed yet?"

"You fucking wish." Unable to do much else in that position, Zoro brought one leg up to knock his foot from its resting place before he had the chance to try anything. He felt the blond's leg tighten around his waist to keep from slipping down, and his hands that had been so arrogantly stuffed in his pockets reflexively shot out to latch onto Zoro's forearms for balance. Zoro, however, had yet to set his own foot back down and had no balance to give; the full weight of them both fell into the shelf, knocking boxes of sake and paper to the floor, and the shelf and their bodies along with it.

Zoro caught himself just before he hit the ground, planting one hand on the overturned shelf and one on the floor, effectively trapping the other man underneath him. But before he had the chance to taunt him, a second leg joined the first around his waist and Sanji twisted his hips to successfully switch their positions.

The concrete floor and dusty papers that Zoro found himself forced onto were wet and reeking of spilled alcohol. There was a foot tucked under his chin and a hand pulling his arm in the other direction, keeping him locked in place with no way to move. He was almost certain he felt a papercut slice across his cheek as the blond's foot pressed his neck down harder into the pile of half-soggy documents. "Had enough already?" Sanji panted, his chest heaving from the exertion as they stared each other down.

Enduring the pressure of the pseudo-armlock, Zoro shifted just far enough for the foot on his neck to slip off and promptly grabbed a fistfull of Sanji's tie, pulling the man down onto his knees and consequently to his eye level. "Fight me when I'm armed and I'll knock you flat in seconds, you got that?"

"Is that a threat or a promise...?" The blond asked, raising an eyebrow as he crushed the remainder of his lollipop between his teeth. Before Zoro had the chance to respond, he was cut off by a wet, cherry-flavored stick sliding between his lips; the leftover shards of candy stuck to it were rugged and scraped his tongue on the way in, but he was too dumbfounded by the action to care much. His heart nearly leapt out of his chest when the door across the room opened with a loud squeak, filling the room with the stark white lighting of the stairwell.

"Zoro, Sanji," a rough voice called from the doorway. "Are you both alright? Robin called me to come check on you! Something about a banging noise...?"

"Uh, w-we're fine!" Sanji called back, reflexively swatting Zoro's hand from his tie and smoothing his hair back, eyes darting around as he finally seemed to realize the horrible mess they'd managed to make in the last few minutes of blind rage and contention.

"Oh, damn, what did you guys do?" The voice was closer suddenly; Zoro looked up and over his shoulder to find their boss studying the shelves they'd toppled with a relatively impressed expression.

"Uh, we tripped," Zoro replied simply, pulling the stick from his mouth and tucking it into his pocket and out of sight.

"Both of you?" Shanks raised an eyebrow, his line of sight still scanning the area for damage.

"Uh, yeah, both of us." Well, the explanation wasn't exactly a total lie.

"That explains a lot..." Shanks let out a sigh through his nose, running a hand through his hair with an exhausted but oddly understanding smile. "It looks like a storm passed through here."

"Er, something like that."

"Well, no harm done if you're both okay, I guess. If it's fine with you guys, I want to hold our monthly group meeting once you're done cleaning up this mess and bringing up the stock... So be quick about it, alright?"

"Yes, sir…" Sanji groaned in mortification, nodding from behind the pair of hands that shielded his very obviously bright red face.

"Alright, then. I'll leave it in your hands," the boss nodded, picking up a half-emptied sake bottle from one of the overturned boxes and taking a sip before he made his way back to the door. "...Oh, and Sanji?"

"Sir?" He called back, broken glass crackling under his foot as he finally stood up again.

"Those sake bottles are coming out of your paycheck." He lifted the bottle in their direction as a friendly sort of gesture, flashing them one last smile before disappearing behind the door.

If those legs weren't going to be the death of Zoro, the murderous look the blond shot him when they were alone again certainly could have been. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes, my first fight scene... Things are gonna start getting real sexy real quick… *evil laughter*
> 
> Thank you to those who reviewed; your support makes the effort worth it! And to those of you on spring break like I am, I hope you have fun this week!~


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, let's start earning that M-rating a little, shall we?

As expected, carrying the few dozen boxes of sake upstairs had little effect on Zoro's endurance; cleaning up the mess they'd made, on the other hand, had been a whole different beast altogether.

Sanji had very obviously been trying his damnedest to make the process as difficult as he could, constantly spewing annoying crap like  _"Oi, those papers don't go there!"_ , even though Zoro was sure they did, and  _"You're in my way, shithead!"_ , even though there was more than enough room for them both to work just fine. Honestly, it was a damn miracle they hadn't instigated another brawl and ended up wrecking the other side of the room as well. But they'd managed to get the job done in record time, who even fucking knows how, and made it upstairs just in time for Shanks' meeting to begin.

Unlike Zoro's run-of-the-mill office (and most of the rest of the building too, to be fair,) the conference room was lavishly decorated. The wooden chairs around the table were cushioned thickly with red velvet; just like something out of a stereotypical mobster flick. His shoes sunk into the plush, pillowy carpet underneath his feet as he sat there; it made the one in his apartment feel like bare concrete in comparison. Even the walls were blanketed with framed art and fancy tapestries, lined from end to end with glass display boxes full of business-related treasures. In his opinion, it was so cliche it was almost tacky; but apparently the boss liked it that way. More power to him, Zoro figured, leaning back in his seat as he studied the ornate model ship that took up the entire center of the table.

On the other side of the replica vessel, Sanji sat with his elbows propping him up over the rosewood. The lollipop stick that he'd so generously shoved in Zoro's mouth before had since been replaced with an unlit cigarette, which was being equally as demolished between his grinding teeth as the former had been. To say he still looked miffed would be a drastic understatement.

The blond's attitude was at least somewhat warranted; he was out a few days' worth of pay because of their little scuffle, after all. Zoro had offered to try repackaging the salvageable sake for him to take home, to soften the blow to his wallet at the very least. But he'd refused, claiming that he "would never risk swallowing fucking glass shards like some sort of goddamn vagrant". Fine, then; Zoro would just take it home for himself. At least he tried, right? But his good intentions had apparently been lost on Sanji, if the way the man continued to stare him down without so much as a single blink were any indication.

"Alright, let's get down to business," Shanks started, pulling Zoro's attention away from the man across the table for a moment. The boss was skimming through some notes in a white folder, as he tilted his chair on its hind legs to prop his feet up on the table. "I'll try to get past the boring stuff as quickly as possible... First off, we should probably address the huge, gaping crater that magically appeared in the parking lot a few days ago. Luffy, do you have anything to say about that?"

Seated to Zoro's left, Luffy shifted awkwardly in his chair. "Me? Nah, I dunno what you're talking about..." Oh, yeah, that was totally believable.

"Is that so?" Shanks stifled a laugh and raised an eyebrow in the straw-hatted man's direction. "Because I could have sworn I had a witness that says otherwise."

"What?! No way!"

Zoro let out a quiet sigh through his nose, stealing a glance at the clock as he absentmindedly tried to calculate just how long this damn thing was going to take. Too long, he decided, bitterly shifting his line of sight away from the minute hand that refused to move.

When his gaze turned back forward, Sanji turned to face him as well. The expression he wore was still completely unreadable, and for once the ambiguity had nothing to do with the fact that half of his face was obscured behind that soft-looking sheet of gold; rather than that, it was just... strange. He seemed annoyed, but not as angry as before; focused, but not pleased in the slightest. He looked like he might've been trying to figure out how many different ways he could torture Zoro with the empty water glass sitting upside-down on the table next to his elbow. For the record, the answer was a resounding zero.

Zoro would have had dozens of comebacks to a look like that, in any other situation. But sitting there surrounded by their co-workers in the midst of a heated argument about the parking lot, he could do nothing but stare back at Sanji in silence.

"I'm telling you, it was aliens!" Usopp exclaimed, flailing energetically. "They zapped a crater into the ground right in front of our eyes!"

Zoro folded his arms over his chest, mirroring Sanji's look of displeasure. This conversation clearly had no place for either of them, and their little staring contest was very obviously going nowhere. There were a million things he wanted to ask, most of them snarky or insulting on one level or another, like  _"What crawled up your ass and died?"_  or  _"Do you realize how stupid you look when you frown like that?"_ , but none of the questions that popped into his mind felt like enough. There was a bigger, more important query that really should be asked, he came to realize, watching the blond's head slowly shift into a questioning tilt in his direction. Checking to make sure he was still off the boss' radar, he grabbed his pen without a sound, carefully writing a message upside down in tiny print on the paper in front of him for Sanji to read. _"What do you want from me?"_

The other man's brow furrowed at this, lips parting almost imperceptibly as he perked up a bit, lifting his chin from his hands. He mouthed the words silently as he read them, another one of those admittedly interesting habits that Zoro had picked up on. He did it whenever he skimmed texts on his phone, or when he stole papers from Zoro's desk. More times than he could count, Zoro had caught the blond reading e-mails over his shoulder after being tipped off by the sound of lips parting in an inaudible whisper next to his ear. But even after getting caught in the act nearly half a dozen times in as many days, that habit of his was apparently impossible to break.

After reading the message, Sanji's chin sunk back into his propped-up hands, and he untensed. Whatever it was he was thinking about, it was a hefty deliberation; he pulled his lower lip between his teeth, eyes shifting up and down Zoro's form carefully, before he finally turned his gaze off to the side with a microscopic smirk.

Moments later, Zoro felt something touch his foot.

Not like a bug or something; as it shifted up from the tip of his shoe to rub his ankle, he noted it was soft. And warm. And wet. He sucked in a sharp breath; holy shit, it was Sanji, stripped of his shoe and clad only in a sock that was still a little damp with either sweat or spilled alcohol, he wasn't sure which. Zoro's foot reflexively twitched in the other man's direction, and Sanji's visible eyebrow raised in interest, eyes flickering across his face in search of something. He quickly pulled his foot back toward his chair, inwardly berating himself for having that kind of literal knee-jerk reaction rather than shock to whatever the hell was going on there.

"Roronoa, is there a problem?" Shanks chimed into their silent conversation with a hint of amusement, folding his arms back behind his head as he crossed his legs on top of the table. All eyes in the meeting room save for a certain singular one turned to him with a questioning look.

_Yes. Yes, there definitely is_. "No," he managed to choke out, frustratedly running a hand through his hair. "I'm good, go on."

The boss stared at Zoro for another awkward moment, likely making a mental note to bother him more later if he knew Shanks even slightly as well as he thought he did, before flashing him a bright smile and turning his attention back to Luffy and Usopp. "Okay then, sure thing. So, about that hole… The two of you are going to fill it tonight, right?"

"Whaaat, but that's so hard! Can't we just call a professional to do it?"

"Nope. You two need some discipline, and this is how you're gonna get it."

As the three of them continued their offhanded banter, Sanji's foot shifted up inside the hole of his pant leg, exploring the bare skin underneath as far as the stiff fabric would allow. His toes and the arch of his foot curled around the other's tense, unmoving leg, sliding slowly down, then back up again, as if to test the waters. Zoro gave an involuntary shudder, biting hard into the side of his hand as he shot a glare to the other side of the table. If that was supposed to be an answer to his question, he didn't understand it in the slightest; but if the shit cook picked up on his confusion, he didn't seem to care much, opting to continue driving him to the edge of madness with a few well-placed caresses rather than finding a more understandable way of explaining himself. Zoro stared him down with a pointedly wide-eyed look, to express the most potent  _"What the hell are you doing?!"_ message he could manage to send him without looking like a complete idiot to anyone else in the room.

The other man, slowly and casually as to not draw attention to himself, dragged the finger that had been resting curled around the contour of his cheek over to his lips, holding it there for a few moments before he shifted the hand back under his chin and returned to looking intently at the windows.

What,  _"be quiet"_? Is that what he was trying to say?

"All right now, Zoro, don't take this the wrong way," the boss chuckled, looking him over skeptically with a hint of honest concern. "But you look like you're about to have an aneurysm. If you need to take some time off and head out early, I really wouldn't have a problem with filling you in on the meeting details later."

Zoro subtly stretched his suddenly rigid, tense shoulders and shook his head, sinking back from the table and lower into his chair to feign some semblance of nonchalance. "Er… There's no need, please continue."

The blond sitting on the other side of the table grinned smugly at this, eyes still glued to the windows with an unfocused gaze. Nobody else in the room seemed to notice the way his shoulders shook with a silent laugh, but Zoro sure as hell did. Where, exactly, was he going with this?

As if on cue, Sanji's foot slipped out from inside his pant leg, his toe tracing a small circle around Zoro's ankle before drifting up along the solid bone of his shin. The man sat perfectly unmoving from the waist up, regarding him with an audacious, half-lidded  _"Come on..."_  sort of look. He was waiting for something. For what? For him to break, to make a sound? Well, the curly-brows was shit out of luck; that wasn't going to happen.

After a moment Sanji seemed to pick up on his stubbornness, giving a practically inaudible huff as he shifted his attention back to their rambling boss. But as Zoro waited and waited for him to stop his incessant touching, assuming the strange challenge or whatever it was to be over, Sanji simply continued onward, circling his knee with a ghosting touch. He resisted the automatic urge to groan, neck straining to keep his head from rolling back against the top of his chair.  _Be quiet._  All right; he could do that. Taking a deep breath in through his nose, then out through his mouth, he steeled himself and turned back to face the rest of the group as well.

But before he had the chance to really catch up to the conversation, he heard the door to the room creak open, and promptly felt the heat of the other's foot jerk away from his leg. He turned to inspect the source of the noise curiously, inwardly refusing to acknowledge the bit of irritation he felt bubble up inside him at the sudden loss of contact. The tiny space between the opening door and the wooden frame revealed a hesitant Chopper peeking through, holding something steamy in his tiny gloved hands, and Zoro's annoyance quickly deflated. "Excuse me, Mr. Shanks, I have that latte you wanted...!"

"Oh, Tony! Glad to hear it! Is it still warm?" The older man asked, twisting in his chair to face the door directly.

Chopper nodded, swiftly scrambling inside to set the cup in his hands on the table next to the boss. "Yes sir. It kept my hands really toasty the whole way here… But if it's not to your liking, though, I could put it in the microwave in the break room!"

Shanks took a tentative sip, and turned to him with one of his typical bright smiles. "Nah, it's perfect! Thanks, buddy, I really needed that. You did good!"

Chopper perked up immediately, squirming gleefully with his hands cupping his cheeks. Zoro was very quickly getting used to watching the kid's silly displays of excitement, but they were still as entertaining to watch as ever. "Really? I mean, being appreciated doesn't make me happy, bastard...!"

"Sure, got it," the boss gave a hearty laugh, ruffling the kid's hair. "If I recall correctly, you have a lecture in a few hours, right? Why don't you take the rest of the day off?"

"Is that really okay?" He blinked, pausing mid-sway to regard the boss with almost sparkling eyes.

"Yeah, it's no problem! There isn't much left to be done, anyway."

"Alright, well… I guess I'll go get some homework done, then. Have a nice afternoon, guys!"

"See ya later," Zoro spoke up, still in high-spirits over the kindness the kid had shown him earlier that day, nodding once with a half-smile in his direction. Tony looked surprised at first, checking over his shoulder as if he thought Zoro could have actually been talking to someone else, then gave him an extra wide, toothy grin and waved excitedly before running off.

"Bye, Chopper!" Luffy called after him, and Zoro could just barely make out a muffled "goodbye!" from the hallway beyond the door. He was admittedly a little envious that the kid got to leave early, but he definitely deserved it. Studying medicine was serious business, after all, and it was impressive enough that Chopper had time for them at all in the first place.

"Okay, where were we?" Shanks muttered mostly to himself, shifting a pile of papers in front of him around as he idly sipped at his drink. There was a long pause, and Zoro spared another glance to the clock on the wall. It'd been a whole ten minutes since the last time he looked. Great. Exhaustedly, he buried his face in his hands and tried without success to rub the nerves in his face back to life. He stayed like that a moment longer, inwardly debating whether or not to take a ten-second power nap behind the wall of fingers hiding him from sight, before the feeling of being watched caught his attention.

The curly-brows was once again very obviously watching him out of the corner of his eye, trying far too hard to look aloof. There was a hint of red tinting his cheeks that was impossible to miss, but could easily be blamed on the room's unreasonably humid temperature; however, Zoro knew better. He smirked incredulously, tilting his head to the side in a way that loosely translated as,  _"What, you're pissed that I stopped paying attention to you for five damn seconds?"_

Apparently picking up on his silent message just fine this time, Sanji snorted under his breath, rolling his eyes and gripping the armrests of his chair to readjust himself. Zoro saw it coming a mile away when a foot pressed against him again; but as cotton-clad toes drifted mischievously from the back of his slightly bent knee up toward his inner thigh, he nearly spat all over the table in shock. The foot was drifting up so high, but somehow Sanji's leg was completely avoiding bumping the table and drawing attention to them. Did that man's flexibility know no bounds? He had half a mind to peer under there, if only to figure out how the fuck he was contorted in such a manner.

"Mm, let's see here… So, Accounting, how are we doing this month?"

"We're pretty far in the green, as expected," Nami replied as she thumbed through a folder of papers on the table, pulling out a single sheet to hand to the boss. "In that regard, we're fine, however..."

"...There's a problem?" Shanks finished for her, scratching the back of his head idly with a slight frown. There was a look in his eye that hinted that he'd figured as much already.

"Yeah, that's one way of putting it."

"Well, that sucks. What seems to be the issue?"

Zoro's eyes fluttered shut as the intruding foot rubbed in slow, sensual circles on the inseam of his pants. Much to his frustration, though somewhat relieving at the same time, it was quickly becoming impossible to pay attention to the meeting at hand. He could detect every minuscule movement, every single microscopic crack of the man's joints as his toes flexed and wiggled. The way he applied pressure, then took it away, then pressed forward again slightly lighter in subtle rhythm was downright diabolical.

The worst part was, it felt awesome.

Fuck it, he didn't care if the turn of events didn't contextually make any damn sense; he'd just call Sanji out on his shit later. Sinking down in his seat, he gave a challenging roll of his hips against the man's foot, pulling an inaudible gasp out of the man on the other side of the table as he jerked his foot away. His visible eye studied Zoro for a moment, apparently caught in between a state of disbelief and embarrassment. Had he really not expected him to go along with it? Not that Zoro could blame him, really; he was having a hard time believing it himself.

As if reading his mind a few moments delayed, Sanji scowled and dug his toes in between Zoro's thighs with renewed vigor, sporting the sort of face that practically screamed, " _Challenge fucking accepted_." A second foot made its way up to join the first, and Zoro nearly had to choke back a throaty moan as his chest wound up tightly in response.

"Ah, Croc should know the rules better than anyone... We'll have to let him know he's blacklisted until his fluffy pink friend decides he's willing to play nice." Shit, what were they talking about? He'd completely zoned out and missed something important, judging by the way Shanks' fingers were drumming so steadily on the tabletop.

"I agree," Sanji chimed in emphatically, subtly shooting Zoro a victorious smirk as he continued his ministrations. His upper body was as still as a marble statue, despite how thoroughly his foot was twisting and rubbing against him under the table. "We should make a visit, don't you think?"

"Mm, I suppose we should…" Shanks hummed, his head tilting back as he stared at the ceiling in thought.

It was almost impressive how nonchalant Sanji appeared from his viewpoint across the table. But Zoro was none too pleased with the prospect of being the only one of the two of them to be stuck on the receiving end in their irritatingly one-sided and completely spontaneous battle of sorts. Without bothering to follow suit and take his shoes off, he promptly ran his foot into where he assumed the man's ridiculously long legs met the rest of his body under the table; not enough to hurt, but enough to wipe the smug look right off of his stupid, chiseled face. Zoro could just barely make out a very Sanji-like growl from across the table, and took a quick glance around the room to see if anyone else had caught it; of course they hadn't. A brief look of shock melted into pained pleasure before Sanji steadied himself against the table and regained his calm and collected smile, leaning on his elbows to feign interest in the topic at hand. "Preferably, we should make that visit sooner than later... so we can catch them while the iron's still  _hot_ , if you catch my drift," he added, eyes flickering to Zoro's for a split second.

"Huh, you sure are in a good mood all of a sudden… I thought for sure you'd be sulking over your pay deduction all day," Shanks mused, his serious, contemplative expression softening in good humor. "But you're right, though. Go call Franky for me and send him over there, would you?"

Sanji's eyes hung on Zoro for a brief moment longer, seeming to dejectedly absorb their mutual exchange of foot-frottage for the short time it lasted before nodding and shifting his chair away from the table. The sudden absence of contact left an unpleasant chill in its wake, and for the first time ever, his departure actually left Zoro feeling a little uncomfortable. "Sure thing, boss," he replied in an airy tone, slipping out of his seat. "I'll get right on it."

Zoro watched on in a slight daze as he smoothly made his way to the other side of the table, side stepping a glass column and a stack of wooden chests, and sliding out the meeting room door with that typical spring in his step as he left. He didn't miss the subtle glance Sanji gave him over his shoulder as he shut the door behind himself, nor did he miss the heavy sigh coming from the hallway that the blond likely thought had been muted by the walls.

That was the last time Zoro so much as heard Sanji's voice for seven days.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, sorry if this came out too long. ._.;

For the first time in ages, Zoro found himself unable to sleep.

Well, that was partially a lie; he had certainly gotten a little bit of sleep that night _—_ the dream that haunted the forefronts of his memory was proof enough of that _—_ but he'd awoken a couple of hours ago and had no luck trying to fall asleep again since.

Shifting his stiff neck to glance at the alarm clock on his bedside table, he winced.  _6:30AM._  Alright, so maybe "a couple of hours ago" was a bit of an understatement. With a tired groan he turned back to face the shadowy ceiling, taking a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth. He repeated the pattern a few more times, but his lungs felt just as heavy.

Unlike most of his dreams, this one was excruciatingly vivid to him even after counting the water spots on his walls a dozen times over. He could still hear dream-Sanji's voice ringing in his ears, sultry and teasing.

_"Hey, Zoro, let's play a game."_

That's always what it was, wasn't it? Even in his dreams, he couldn't go ten goddamn minutes without hearing those words. It was infuriating.

He squirmed to unravel his limbs from his blankets and rubbed at the fabric creases on his chest, nearly jumping out of his skin when his fingers grazed over his scar and he recalled dream-Sanji touching him there. His mind reeled back to the way it felt when those fingers followed the line from his shoulder down to his hip, tracing slow, tantalizing swirls on his skin when they reached his belt. A hot breath had followed them down, imitating a torrent of steam along the dips of his abs, and Zoro remembered and actual, genuine moan escaping his lips as he urged the man to continue.

It'd been the most mind-numbingly passionate wet dream he'd experienced to date. Not that there had been all that many, in comparison to what he assumed would be the norm, but still. For him, it was a wake-up call of the highest degree; one he had never asked for, and sure as hell didn't need in the middle of the goddamn night. He was no stranger to daydreaming about the cook, more jokingly as a masochistic way to pass time, but this was different; this had been prompted by nothing but his own desires. There was nothing facetious about it.

Seven days blond-free, and this was what he was reduced to. Not getting to see Sanji lately was starting to fuck with his brain. The subject of his dream could have been anyone, or nobody in the real world at all; but part of him was very obviously trying to make up for the lack of pestering cooks in his life for the past week. The fact that he had no idea why the man had disappeared was a little disquieting, but since nobody had made a big deal of it or even bothered to mention anything to him, he assumed it must have been something boring and work-related; or, at the very least, temporary. There was nothing to worry about, but that didn't stop his subconscious from filling in the gaps in his social quota, apparently.

He rolled over onto his side, eyes squinting shut as he tried to ignore the smoldering hot wrench in his gut.  _"Calm down, marimo… Whoever gets there first loses."_  His toes curled as he recalled that heated whisper, and the grind of hips against his that had gone along with it.

It bothered the hell out of him how easily he had accepted that line. He'd gone along with it without question, taking dream-Sanji up on his challenge without even considering an alternative. He was getting used to the games and the bets, so much so that his own subconscious was starting to make them up all on its own. What kind of bullshit was that?

Flinging himself up from his pillows with a growl, he welcomed the sobering, chilled air on his skin as the blankets fell away and pooled in his lap. His bed was offering no relief, but maybe a cold shower would. The wooden floor of his bedroom creaked under his weight as he slid off the mattress, not bothering to find any clothes as he stomped out into the hallway. He lived alone, after all; there was nobody around to care if he showed some skin.

However, after standing under the spray of icy water for nearly half an hour, throwing on his work clothes for the day sounded a lot more tempting; he grabbed his typical black pants and overlooked a white collared shirt for a gray one instead, in mild hopes that the darker color would pull attention away from the shadows under his eyes. It was a lot more clothing than he was used to wearing around his apartment; then again, there was nobody around to make fun of him for being overdressed to hang out in his own place, either.

Making his way through the oversized and vacant kitchen, he squinted with an irritated frown as the rising sun reflected off of the glass tabletop to momentarily blind him. He really needed to buy some curtains; but one glance at his open and empty wallet sitting over on the living room couch was enough to make him scoff at the idea. He didn't have money to spare for crap like that; practically every penny he earned went toward paying rent. The cost had been a lot easier to manage with more than just his income to foot the bill, but now such luxuries were in the past. And the idea of moving somewhere else made his stomach churn, so he put up with it.

However, he'd be lying if he said it was easy; he had enough to get by, but tended to cut corners almost a little too sharply. He skipped meals more often than he actually had them, and often wore out clothes to the point of finding inch-wide holes in the fabric. But the addition of fabric softener, admittedly, did seem to be giving his clothes more longevity. Perhaps Sanji had some domestic wisdom, after all. Not that he had any intention of mulling that over.

Picking his meager wallet up off the couch cushion and stuffing it into his back pocket, he checked the time on the cable box;  _7:17AM_. It was still way too early to clock in on time, but Shanks wasn't against people occasionally starting their work day a bit ahead of the group. And making an hour's worth of extra pocket change would certainly be useful. As if on cue, his stomach growled loudly, and he rolled his eyes in spite of himself. Yeah, he could stand to earn another trip to the grocery store.

Having made up his mind, he grabbed his briefcase from the floor next to the barren bookcase, giving his apartment one last glance over to make sure he hadn't left anything on. When he was only met with the glaring light of the living room window and the muffled hum of the refrigerator, he turned to slip on his shoes and leave.

On his way out, he was met with an all too familiar sight; a picture frame adorned the wall beside the doorframe, displaying a candid photo of a preteen girl, smiling brightly up at the cameraperson with a sheath in her hands that was a white and unmarred as her smile.

Reflecting the image's grin back at it despite the tired ache clouding his head, he tapped his knuckles against the wall underneath the frame with a hollow clack. "I'm heading out, Kuina. Keep this place safe while I'm gone."

Only silence followed him out the door, but even so, his eyelids felt a little less heavy, and his heart a little less chaotic.

xxx

The continued absence of Sanji was debilitating. Even with the man out of his hair, Zoro had barely gotten a single page of work done in a timely fashion that day. He kept watching the door, anticipating the moment when it would finally fly off its hinges to reveal the man that would no doubt have a ton of stories to tell about wherever the hell he'd been. That moment never came though, no matter how many times he'd been pulled out of concentration by a creak or rattle on the other side of the door.

Despite starting the day early, his lack of productivity kept him holed up in his office long after the others had gone home. He had even worked through lunch, if the mindless fidgeting he'd accomplished could even be called that, but it hadn't helped his case in the slightest. Shanks had casually suggested once or twice that he simply call it quits and try again the next day, but Zoro had refused. He had a duty to finish, after all.

It wasn't until an hour past closing that he finally forced himself away from his desk long enough to get some food into his system. The break room was a very different place when it was empty; the table seemed far too big for one person, and the lack of scent in the air save for his own dish of white slop left a lot to be desired. He tore through his food as quickly as his stomach would allow, none too keen on wasting time in a room that unsettling.

The common hallway was flooded with a golden orange glow by the time Zoro headed back to his office. He could practically hear his bed calling to him from halfway across town; but he was so close to completing his work, so damn close to calling it a day that he didn't allow himself to dwell on it. The food had given him the last push he needed; now that he was undoubtedly going to be alone for the rest of the evening, he could get his work done without any distractions. At least now he could give up on his baseless hope of seeing Sanji until the next day rolled around. No cook, no problem. Who even cared, really?

However, when he entered his office and caught sight of the man sitting on top of his desk, a melancholic expression not even directed at him as he slowly closed the door with a stunned click, something in Zoro's chest swayed.

"I thought I already told you not to break into my office," he said, unmoving from his spot by the doorway. Sanji turned to him with a sideways tilt of his head, his distant look replaced with a smirk of equal dullness. Dark circles under his eyes painted his irises a shadier blue than Zoro recalled, making his naturally pale complexion an even more faded tone. If the concept of a sexy zombie were even remotely logical, one would likely look similar.

"Door was open. I'm happy to see you too, moss head." His tone was laced with a languid sarcasm, tired and airy as he took a drag off of a lit cigarette.

"You look terrible," Zoro muttered, ignoring his own mind's inward mantra of  _holy shit, he's here_  long enough to tear his eyes away from the man and walk over behind the desk. His chair squeaked as he slumped into it and spun to face the remnants of his work again. "Where the hell have you been, lately?"

"Damn, I'm flattered you missed me so much." Another long drag, and heavy exhale.

"I didn't miss you at all," he retorted a bit too vehemently, just barely moving his papers out of the way in time for the blond to uproot himself and slide over to the middle of his desk, facing the chair with his legs dangling aside either armrest.

"Oh yeah...?" Sanji asked, pausing a moment to hide a quiet yawn behind the hand that held his cigarette. The loose tie around his neck swayed in front of Zoro's face as he slouched over with his elbows resting on his thighs, bending down until their tired eyes met. "Then why do you care where I was?"

"Who said anything about caring? It was just weird," not to mention horrible timing, considering Zoro had been left entirely to his own bewildered devices immediately following their silent little confrontation. "I mean, I was planning on kicking your ass for the stunt you pulled in that meeting, but then you just... disappeared."

"Wait, you mean you really don't know?" Sanji raised an eyebrow in his direction, lingering for a moment before turning away to idly thumb through Zoro's documents as he spoke. "I was covering for Franky's vacation time. I thought someone would have told you."

Zoro blinked lethargically, letting the information sink into his already muddled brain as he reflexively swatted Sanji's hand away from his work; he received a light kick to the side in response, hardly forceful enough to even catch his notice.

He had rightly assumed the blond's disappearance had been work-related, but he had no idea the man had been out roughing up customers for money all week. Admittedly, the mental image of Sanji smooth-talking procrastinators and kicking the shit out of cash-swindling weasels was one he secretly didn't mind filing away to meditate over when he was better rested.

"Someone needed to make his rounds for the week," Sanji continued, stubbing out his cigarette and tossing it into the trashcan. "Side note; holy shit, you have a lot left to do here."

"Yeah, I do. Luffy and I had to cover your share of the work for this week." Zoro gave the scattered pile of papers now crumpled up to his left a short glance. If Sanji was going to be returning to his normal job, his own productivity was likely to go back to normal as well. Unfortunately, that didn't quite solve his current dilemma of needing to finish for the night; and the curly-browed blight himself seemed awfully set on getting comfortable right in the middle of his work space. "So can you cut to the chase and tell me why exactly you're here?" He asked, frowning up at the man on top of his desk with a mixture of confusion and annoyance. It was truly amazing how quickly he could go from feeling relieved to downright irritated in that man's presence.

"Oh, no reason," Sanji replied, shifting his hazy gaze up to the ceiling in some semblance of indifference. "I was just... in the mood for a shoulder massage, and was sort of under the impression you wouldn't have anything better to do."

Zoro shifted back in his chair, eyeing the other man incredulously. Part of him was tempted to try pinching himself, just to make sure he wasn't dreaming again, but even his mind wasn't capable of coming up with a proposition quite that stupid. "You seriously expect me to believe that?"

"And what's wrong with that, shitty moss-brain?"

"I don't know, everything?" Suggestive implications aside, there were so many things wrong with that statement that he didn't even know where to begin objecting.

Sanji leaned back on his hands, head tilting up in that way he always did whenever he was feeling a little testy. "I'm tired as hell, and those arms of yours obviously aren't just for show. Tell me how that's illogical."

Pointedly ignoring the flutter in his chest over the comment about his body for the moment, Zoro took the bait. "Well, for starters, you had no way of knowing I'd still be here this late."

Sanji's visible eye narrowed puzzledly at him, and he dug into his back pocket. "This-... what? It's not that late, is it?" He grumbled, pulling out his phone. From his spot closer to Sanji's hand-level, Zoro could make out a  _8:49PM_ in the top right corner of the screen, next to the silhouetted school of fish that constituted the man's bright-as-fuck-blue lockscreen photo. Sanji winced, and shoved it back into his pocket with a quiet huff. "Alright, yeah, fine. That's not why I came here. I was just stopping by to file my report for the week, but I saw your light was on, so..." He trailed off, yawning again. When Zoro waited for him to continue, however, Sanji's gaze drifted to him and then flickered to the floor, his tired look shifting to a stupid half-smile.

If what he said were true, just how long had he been sitting there waiting for Zoro to come back? It could have been anywhere between a few minutes and half an hour, if the time he'd seen on the cellphone's screen were accurate. "So, what?" He asked, still not sure what exactly Sanji was getting at.

"Like I said already, idiot. I'm tense. You're strong. Give me a hand."

Zoro wasn't exactly one to brag all that often, but, well, he didn't really mind when other people did it for him; especially when "other people" were not particularly lacking in the traits they were attributing to him. Even more so when those traits pertained to his physical abilities. On top of that, he was no stranger to the human body; years of training and sustaining injury had made him expertly knowledgeable in muscular health. Lending the man a hand to rub out some knots wasn't outside the realm of possibilities.

"If you do it, I'll take over cleaning duty for you next week," Sanji added, his grin faltering a little as one of his hands slowly drifted up to fidget with his hair, as he so often did when he was feeling uncomfortable.

Zoro's gaze scanned his frame carefully, taking in the way he hunched over slightly and kept his weight to one side. The cook was breathing in an uneven pattern, and chewing on his lip even more than usual. Zoro was familiar with symptoms of physical exhaustion; and the way the man seemed to struggle to keep himself upright concerned him a bit. There was no doubt in his mind that Sanji was a lot more than just "tense"; he looked like a wreck in almost every way a person could. He had no idea what it had taken to demolish the man so thoroughly, but considering he was hardly in top condition himself, he had no right to call him out on it.

"...Okay, I get it. Forget I said anything, I'm out of here," Sanji grumbled under his breath, shifting to slide off the desk. But when Zoro caught him by the wrist he stilled, looking back down at him with a pout. "What?"

"It hurts, right?" He released his grip when the other man stopped moving, drawing back to roll up his sleeves.

Sanji's visible eye widened. "It doesn't-… it doesn't  _hurt,_  dumbass, it-"

Zoro knew immediately that he was lying. "Just turn around and shut up." He didn't mean for the order to come out so harshly, but Sanji complied without putting up a fight, eyeing him suspiciously for a moment longer before pulling his legs up and turning around on top of the desk.

Zoro had to stand up to be above his shoulder-level, sliding his chair back out of the way with a quiet squeak. Other than the two of them, the office was staggeringly silent, which was still uncomfortable to him even though he pined for the calmness most days. Somehow, this was different.

The longer he stood there without saying or doing anything, the more awkward it was likely to become; so he cracked his knuckles and got to work, hesitating for only a moment before he pressed his fingertips into the man's shoulders, tracing out from the base of his neck, then back in. Sanji tensed up under him with a quiet gasp, but relaxed before Zoro could question it. Taking that as a signal to continue, he dragged his thumbs along the blond's shoulders, digging in deeper whenever he came across a contortion in his muscles. There were a hell of a lot more of them than he was expecting; the man had more knots than a damn sailboat. It was almost impressive that he was even managing to sit up straight in the first place.

"...I thought working the streets was supposed to be fun," he mused, in a half-hearted attempt to fill the void of sound. "Why are you so drained?"

Sanji paused for a moment, before shrugging a bit under his hands. "Ah, well, you know… The job is a fuckload to handle when you're not used to it. Lots of... running around and stuff." It was a lackluster response at best, but the sudden strain in the man's neck hinted that he shouldn't push the issue any further.

Zoro hummed in response, hands shifting lower, kneading into the tight knots around his spine as the man arched into his touch with a short growl. "A-ah, shit…"

He frowned, shifting his stance to dig his fingers in deeper. "Ready to admit it hurts yet?"

"Only when you knead into bone, shitty marimo," Sanji snapped back, peering over his shoulder with a salty glare.

Was that bone? Zoro glanced down with a frown. It was hard to tell when the knots he'd found were practically just as solid. Shifting back up away from his lower back, he readjusted his focus to the man's neck, guiding him to face back the other way with a carefully executed series of strokes. He could have sworn he felt Sanji shiver under his touch, albeit as slight as it was, which brought a shit-eating grin to his face as he continued his ministrations.

"What are you _—mmmgh—_ doing?"

"You're about one bad twist away from getting a neck sprain," he explained, keeping the man's head in place as he rubbed into the muscles behind his jaw and under his ears. "Quit moving and let me fix it."

Sanji grumbled something under his breath in response, but Zoro didn't catch it. Whatever it was, it was likely an offhanded and slightly insulting bullshit remark anyway; nothing he was dying to hear. Especially not when he had the man's neck literally in his grasp and a wavering sense of morality due to exhaustion as well. Strangling just wasn't usually his style.

It didn't take all that much to get his neck back into acceptable shape, so Zoro absent-mindedly began working his way back down to his shoulders, then his arms, trying with all his might to ignore the mischievous temptation to pinch the underside of his biceps in the process. It was sort of stunning to him, in a way, how much he could potentially be able to do in that moment. The faith that Sanji was putting in him, whether he realized he was even doing so or not, was difficult to process.

His fingers traced over the man's ribcage, to his spine, then back out again; there were so many things he could do if he wanted to. He dug his fingers into the spaces, rubbing back and forth. Sanji squirmed a bit under his touch, knuckles whitening as he gripped the desk tighter. For once, even though the opportunity had presented itself so perfectly, Zoro just didn't feel like bringing pain to the blond in the slightest; not even a harmless punch to the kidney. He wanted Sanji to feel good; to feel better, or at least not on the brink of collapsing in on himself, if that were at all an attainable goal.

After giving the space between his shoulderblades some much-needed attention, Zoro drifted down to the small of his back, pressing in his thumbs and massaging outward. He slid his arms around Sanji's waist, pulling him close and shamelessly taking in that scent he'd so begrudgingly been thinking about for so long, as his fingers continued working him in. Just what could he get away with, if he chose to try? His eyes widened when the blond sunk backward in his grasp, his head resting on Zoro's shoulder. His heart throbbed harshly in his chest, the sudden burst giving him a completely unnecessary adrenaline rush as his fingers twitched and curled into the other man's well-fitted shirt. But he crashed almost immediately, burying his face into Sanji's neck with a heavy exhale. The urge to say something was overwhelming, but nothing came to mind but fuzz and static.

They stayed that way for what he could only vaguely recognize as not long enough, before the feeling of drifting to sleep literally jerked him back to attentiveness. He cursed under his breath, stumbling back into his chair as he rubbed his eyes, trying to fight his way back to a state of alertness.

"Huh?" Sanji swayed from the sudden lack of support, catching himself on the edge of the desk before he peered back over his shoulder, eyes fluttering like loose filament in a lightbulb. "Y'finished…?"

"Yeah." He strained to get the word out, swallowing once to diffuse the tightness in his throat. "Uh… How was it?"

"Wasn't bad," Sanji sighed contentedly, turning around all the way to face him with a sleepy smile. "Do my feet next, they're killing me."

"Hell no." Zoro wasn't all too keen on getting close to the weapons that had nearly dislocated his jaw a week prior, nor was his patience prepared to deal with another ten minutes of fucking around instead of working; getting home at some point before morning rolled around was becoming a pipe dream a lot quicker than he cared for, and nearly falling asleep had jumbled up his nerves all over again. "I have shit to do, remember?"

"Oh, c'mon, marimo…" He murmured, his tone laced with a newfound tranquillity. "Don't leave the job half-finished."

As Zoro shifted to sit up properly in his chair with a hefty sigh, Sanji's foot raised to poke his shoulder, prodding him with the tip of his shoe. Yet again, he was reminded how insufferable the blond could be. He reached over to grab the offending extremity, giving the shoe a squeeze to get him to stop.

"Agh, bloody fucking hell!" Sanji hissed, and his body flinched away from Zoro's touch with a violent twist. Zoro let go immediately, completely caught off guard by that level of reaction. "Shit, that was-... O-on second thought, you're right. Let's just do that some other time, okay?"

"What the hell was that?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at the man who then sat with his knee half-pulled to his chest and his visible eye snapped shut.

"Fuck… uh, well, I sort of-..." Sanji stammered, gritting his teeth as he opened his eyes and looked down at himself. With a heavy exhale through his nose, he crossed his leg over his lap and very carefully started taking his shoe off. "Y'know what, you should just take a look for yourself."

The man looked like he was performing brain surgery, slipping one finger in behind his heel at an agonizingly slow pace, and another on either side. He squirmed out of it gradually, then bit his lip and tugged it off all at once, and both of them let out a breath when the shoe finally fell to the floor; although, Zoro still didn't know what the fuss was about.

From what he could see, it looked fine, no swelling or anything. But the way Sanji traced a finger testingly over a few spots before trailing up to tug down his sock was raising some red flags. Something wasn't right, and he wanted to know what it was.

Unfortunately for him, however, Sanji only got it down to his ankle before he sucked in a breath and hesitated. "Actually, you, uh… think you could help me out with this part?"

Zoro glanced up at him questioningly, but complied when the man didn't say more. He moved his chair back a bit so the man could extend his leg out into his lap, and slowly peeled off the thin black fabric. It stuck strangely to his skin in a few spots, pulling away with a puzzling resistance, and he could hear Sanji biting back a groan. But Zoro could immediately see why; the man's foot was covered in thin bandages and red marks all over, dried blood spots coating his skin and coverings. The sock's color had made it impossible to tell before, but it had suffered the same fate as well. "What happened?" He tried to keep from sounding too concerned, despite the awful wrench in his chest as he traced over the stains.

"Got myself into a knife fight without a knife," Sanji started matter-of-factly, with what could have either been a sigh or a laugh, idly running a hand through his hair and keeping his line of sight anywhere but forward. "I told the guy to fight me like a man, but he didn't listen. Still won, though."

"But your shoes don't have any cuts. Did you fight him barefoot or something?" Zoro turned the man's foot around in his hands to examine the wounds. Some of them peeked out from the scattered bandages, though they seemed to have been coated in ointment at the very least. They were obviously made with a cheap blade, and likely hurt like hell. It was no wonder the blond had flinched so violently before; how he had even walked all the way to the office was beyond him.

"Are you stupid? Of course not. I had to run home and get another pair before coming here," Sanji chuckled quietly, shaking his head. "Fucking ridiculous, isn't it? Leaving a fight with your own damn blood on your shoes, I mean."

"You seem like you're used to it," Zoro replied under his breath, leaving out the fact that fighting exclusively with his legs was decidedly the more ridiculous part of the equation.

"Hardly," the man scoffed, flashing a crooked smile in Zoro's direction. "Where I come from, fighting with knives is considered shitty behavior."

"I can't really relate to that." Zoro cracked a half-grin of sorts in response, but it dissipated when he examined the man's heel and found a nasty cut that traveled up along the blade of his foot, covered loosely with bandages that were fresh, but already seemed to be peeling off. "Is the other one the same?" He asked, hoping that perhaps the blond had only needed one foot to take the man down, and had managed to limit the damage to one side.

"It's not as bad."

Not as bad, from what Zoro was coming to understand, meant it was still pretty "not good" by any average person's standards. He shot Sanji a disbelieving look, then sighed and let the man's foot slip carefully out of his hands and back into his lap. "Take off that other shoe, then. I'm going to fix these shitty coverings."

"Shitty?" Sanji's nose wrinkled in some semblance of disgust. "They're... not shitty." Proof that they were, in fact, very shitty lied in the way the man's voice shifted nearly as much as his gaze as he spoke.

"A five-year-old could have done better than this," Zoro retorted, lacking the usual bite that his words would have at this point in an argument. The bandages actually weren't all that terrible, and his statement was really only valid if the five-year-old in question was himself, but the way Sanji's exhausted face flushed red in embarrassment made the taunt worth it. "It's fine, just sit still. There's a first aid kit in my desk somewhere."

Digging through the drawer to his left, he shuffled a few folders around and procured a white box, setting it on top of the unfinished work on his desk. Sanji spared the papers a glance that looked almost a little guilty, struggling not to fidget as Zoro peeled off his less-than-adequate coverings. The damage underneath was expected, but Zoro was surprised to see that any particularly sensitive part of the underside of his foot remained undamaged. The wounds that he suffered were deep, but he'd clearly made sure to keep himself in a functional state. Suddenly it didn't seem all that ridiculous for the other man to have walked all the way to their office; and Zoro, although he was conflicted about admitting it, was impressed.

Sanji, for once in his damn life, remained silent throughout the whole ordeal, fingers occasionally curling tightly into the desk whenever Zoro pressed too hard. He didn't speak up until Zoro was halfway through reapplying the bandages. "...I wonder if Franky has to deal with shit like this a lot."

"I doubt it. That guy's practically made of steel, right? Knives wouldn't do much."

"I bet he's bulletproof too," Sanji snickered, leaning forward with his forearms on his thighs. "Come to think of it, I've never seen him eat…"

Everything always came back to food with him, didn't it? "What, you think he might be a robot?"

"I'm just saying we shouldn't write off the possibility."

Their conversation drifted into another bout of silence, leaving Zoro to redirect his attention to the job in front of him. He applied another butterfly bandage carefully, his shuffling hands and the squeak of his chair as he shifted to get a good angle providing the only noise on their entire floor for a few long minutes.

This time, it was his turn to speak up. "...Some of these wounds are deep. Didn't really peg you as the tough type."

Sanji snorted indignantly, and Zoro's eyes flickered up to find a sleepy scowl aimed in his direction. "And I didn't peg  _you_  as the affectionate type, yet that hug earlier was-"

"What hug? I never hugged you, I was just doing what you asked for." Zoro cut him off quickly, cheeks getting hot as he applied the last of his bandage supply. Shit, he'd been relatively certain the blond had been too drowsy notice. That had definitely been a mistake; one entirely due to exhaustion, and something he was absolutely hellbent on not discussing further. At least, not when he had no idea what his sleep-deprived mind might decide to say about it.

His fingers traced over his handiwork, skimming for any unnoticed imperfections, and Sanji let out a content sigh, his head rolling back and to the side. "...You know, your hands aren't as unwieldy as they look. I should make you do this sort of thing more often."

"You can't make me do anything," Zoro muttered, pointedly running his thumb over one of the spots he'd been avoiding. Sanji hissed under his breath, leg going rigid for a moment before he relaxed again.

"Oh, so you admit that all of this has been voluntary, then...?"

If that wasn't a loaded question, he had no idea what was. Zoro refused to say anything in response, avoiding eye contact as he bent down to pick the discarded shoes up off the floor. He shoved them into Sanji's hands with more force than necessary, then rolled his chair back, forcing the legs on his lap to slide off. The other man seemed to get the hint, examining the bandages for himself before carefully sliding his shoes back on with little effort.

"Hey, Zoro," he spoke up again, obviously holding back a yawn.

"Yeah?"

Standing up from his perch on the desk, Sanji began aligning the unfinished papers back to their original place. "How about we get to work on these documents?"

Momentarily stunned, Zoro sat in his seat and stared at him blankly. Sanji was, without prompting, offering to help him? Surely he must have wanted something; to make another trade, or another bet. If there was anything Zoro didn't need that night, it was another goddamn game. "Go home and sleep. This is my work to finish."

"Well, technically it's mine too," the blond mused, walking with a half-limp to grab one of the extra chairs from the other side of the room. He pulled it over to the back side of the desk, and plucked a pen from the from the pencil holder near the corner, snatching a paper from the top of the stack to examine. "And you need sleep as much as I do. At least this way, there'll be hope for both of us tonight."

Well, that argument was sound. Even so, he couldn't shake off his hesitancy. "What's the catch this time?"

Sanji thought for a moment, tapping the pen rhythmically against his chin as he stared up at the ceiling. "Hm… If you don't argue anymore, I'll make you lunch tomorrow."

That… was not at all what he was expecting. His lips curled into a knowing smile, and he slid his chair forward until they were side by side. "You're not so bad, curly." Not bad at all.

"Sh-shut up and get to work, marimo. We're not staying here all night."

Although they did get to work, and they did finish before daybreak, neither of the two of them had managed to make it home before drifting off, using their arms as pillows on top of the desk, and each other's sides for balance.

For the first time in ages, Zoro found himself sleeping perfectly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aww, these sleepy little dorks were so fun to write. ;w;
> 
> Also, yay, it's summer! :D Updates might be a bit more frequent, but I'm also working on this really awesome fic for the Science Fiction and Fantasy One Piece event too, and that's going to be a long one. Like, 50k words long. And it's due in July. ._. Yeesh. Wish me luck, I'm gonna need it. xD


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